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Google has given raises to thousands of men after an analysis of Google's pay structure found that the company would otherwise be underpaying those men relative to their peers, The New York Times reports. The analysis also led to raises for some women.

Google determines annual pay raises in a three-phase process. First, Google adjusts every employee's compensation based on standard factors like their location, seniority, and performance ratings. Managers can then seek additional discretionary raises for their best-performing employees.

Finally, Google performs a company-wide analysis to determine whether these raises are biased in terms of race or gender. If biases are detected, the disadvantaged workers are given additional raises to eliminate the discrepancies.

"We provided $9.7 million in adjustments to a total of 10,677 Googlers," the company said in a Monday blog post describing the results of the equity analysis.

"Men account for about 69 percent of the company's work force, but they received a disproportionately higher percentage of the money," the Times's Daisuke Wakabayashi writes. "Google said it was important to be consistent in following through on the findings of its analysis, even when the results were unexpected."

In recent years, there has been a lot of concern in Silicon Valley about the opposite problem: women being systematically underpaid relative to their male colleagues.

Of course, it's possible that Google's statistical analysis doesn't capture all factors that could be biasing pay structures against women. Google's analysis aimed to identify employees who are underpaid relative to others in the same job level. But what if the process of assigning employees to job levels is itself biased?

That's the premise of a 2017 lawsuit three women filed against Google in 2017.

"Google has channeled and segregated, and continues to channel and segregate, women on the basis of their sex into lower compensation levels and into less-compensated and less-favorable job ladders and levels," the lawsuit charged.

The Department of Labor has also raised concerns about Google's hiring and promotion practices. "We found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce," a Labor Department official testified in 2017.

Google has rejected those charges.

If Google managers were promoting men more quickly than equally qualified women, that discrepancy wouldn't necessarily get picked up by a statistical analysis that takes employees' job levels as a given.

Google says it plans to study the company's hiring and promotion processes to make sure that the company encourages gender equity.

221 Reader Comments

Like all good economic equality measures, this benefited all workers including women, not exclusively women. So hopefully that's enough for the men's rights idiots to pass over this story and keep their misogyny in check.

Ironically that position was essentially the one that Damore took - so by taking it you will be considered to be a men's rights idiot by many people

Its not, but there's a lot of people out there who will argue until they're blue in the face that you can't discriminate against x group that has historically had power because of the fact that they have/do.

All of these can be true simultaneously:- On average, women tend not to be in high-paying jobs or positions in the corporate world. It's not as true as it was in decades because many women have gone into medicine and the medical field.

But I think it's still true that the highest paid surgeons and doctors are generally still male.

- For a male-dominated industry with high pay, women in the industry may get paid more for the same job. Women are unicorns in software development, so it's not unheard of to throw money to attract talent.

For women, this means glass a ceiling and lingering whispers on merit. For men, this means all-or-nothing. You're cream of the crop or you're undervalued.

Come to think of it, all of this is like the dating scene.

In companies like google this may be so. However, many employers don't care. They just want the best deal possible. Since increases in salary when changing jobs is incremental and greatly influenced by previous salary, women (or any others) will lose out on tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of their career.

Of course, it's possible that Google's statistical analysis doesn't capture all factors that could be biasing pay structures against women.

Of course, it's possible that the perceived gender pay gap is the fault of bad statistics and media hype rather than an actual gap.

The definition of "gender pay gap" is also important.

Here in Norway, the pay for the same positions is pretty much the same - but if you look at average female vs male pay checks, there are big differences. Women tend to select jobs in the public sector, to select educations that pay less, to work less overtime and to be promoted less; the latter happens in particular when they give birth and have small children.

So, is the difference between a male computer engineer and a female social studies graduate gender pay gap or not?

As another hiring manager, I have to say that negotiations doesn't have much of a place in raises. Job offer, sure. Raises? Nope. Everyone has a pay band based on level. When it comes to performance assessment, then you get a rating. The raise is based on that rating. We can tweak it a little, but must stay within a certain percentage and the overall budget pool is fixed. In other words, if I want to give Nancy a 3.1% raise instead of 3.0%, then I have to take the equivalent raise $$ from someone else. I do tend to skim a bit off the top of my senior engineers making over $200K, because percentage wise, they're not going to see a change, while someone at lower levels it makes a noticeable difference.

By the time the employee sees the raise - it's fixed, no negotiations. Negotiations really only apply to job offers and counter offers (if someone else makes an offer and we want to match it). We probably loose a few people that way, but overall maintain a productive, highly effective work force without much in the way of disparity.

Oh, and if the company you work at is a Federal Contractor in the US. Executive Order 11246 prohibits any discipline for discussion of compensation.

Where I'm working, this is both true and false - as in "it's complicated". By the time I and the two others finish determining the raises, there is no negotiation on the raise. However, from time to time we do give extra raises if we feel there is a risk if we don't increase the salary - and we're not comfortable with the risk.

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

If you base salaries on what people ask for, you're going to have salary inequities. Half the point of asking what people want to be paid is to save the company money by not paying more than you have to. This is the problem Google's analysis in this case was meant to solve, so why perpetuate it by even starting that way?

So by implication you are saying that HR should not ask people how much they want and just tell them what the position pays take it or leave it?

You're acting as if it's this unheard of thing to have standardized pay grades (or bands) in business. .

No I didnt say or imply that. Im saying it is common for a company to ask how much the person is looking for, and asking if you think that instead the company should make an offer "take it or leave it".

Because necessarily if the company is negotiating with the individual it cannot be expected that everyone would be paid equally, and if it is a standardized pay grade then there is no negotiation.

You may quibble and say the company could add perks, but if the individual is offered perks that no one else got then compensation is again unequal.

Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

Why not? Last time they offered me 10% more than I asked for. A company should do these things, if they are interested in fair, mutual beneficial, long term relations. Trying to save some pennies short term may hurt in the long run.

Further evidence the wage gap is due to personal preferences, not wide spread gender bias.

This isn't evidence of anything except that Google's pay scale was somewhat out of whack.

Or lt may be the current algorithm is irrelevant or wrong.

I saw some commentary from a Google employee. According to them the algorithm more or less works fine. But before it's finalized it goes up to managers to tweak and adjust as they see fit. And this leads to those managers increasing the amount of the raise for women so they could avoid being seen as sexist. But kinda is since it's tokenism in "Hey look, we're giving women good raises, see."

"Men account for about 69 percent of the company's work force, but they received a disproportionately higher percentage of the money," the Times's Daisuke Wakabayashi writes. "Google said it was important to be consistent in following through on the findings of its analysis, even when the results were unexpected."

In recent years, there has been a lot of concern in Silicon Valley about the opposite problem: women being systematically underpaid relative to their male colleagues.

It's not possible for men to receive "a disproportionately higher percentage of the money" yet for women to be "systematically underpaid relative to their male colleagues." Something's wrong here.

The quote about men is specifically about Google. The line about women is about the tech industry in general. The two are not mutually exclusive, but it does suggest that both propositions are worth poking at to see if they're accurate.

Even if both were about Google, it wouldn't necessarily be inaccurate. If the lawsuit about women being overlooked for promotion is accurate, it would be possible for women to be systematically underpaid due to being retained at lower levels, but men to be paid less at any given level, thus meaning that both genders are underpaid - women are at a lower level than they should be, while men are paid less than women at the same level.

1. Google's pay scale was out of whack2. They performed an analysis and implemented fixes according to their findings3. Outside observers are unhappy because many of the people who got raises are men

I mean...I just. I'm so tired of people who think the solution to discrimination is more discrimination. Discrimination is always bad.

1. Google's pay scale is based on individual salaries in defined bands.2. They performed an analysis and found that men were paid less per band.3. Outside observers pointed out that women were disproportionately placed in lower pay bands to begin with.

Granted, I'm sure there are people that fall into your simplification of what happened. But I did not take that from the article.

Of course, it's possible that Google's statistical analysis doesn't capture all factors that could be biasing pay structures against women.

Of course, it's possible that the perceived gender pay gap is the fault of bad statistics and media hype rather than an actual gap.

The definition of "gender pay gap" is also important.

Here in Norway, the pay for the same positions is pretty much the same - but if you look at average female vs male pay checks, there are big differences. Women tend to select jobs in the public sector, to select educations that pay less, to work less overtime and to be promoted less; the latter happens in particular when they give birth and have small children.

So, is the difference between a male computer engineer and a female social studies graduate gender pay gap or not?

Yes, it is important to understand that there are several components here.

There is a the question as to whether different people doing the same job are paid at different rates. Some people here defend that, but if the consequence is that such differences are related to gender, race, disability etc then that is, on the face of it, discriminatory.

There is the question of whether promotion, grading and recruitment is related to gender, race or disability. There may be good reasons for such statistical differences, but even where they are legal the organisation should consider whether they are justified and desirable.

The third which you raise is that there are certain types of job traditionally done by one group rather than another. Because male pay rates have been higher than women's that may not reflect value to the organisation, skill levels, and so on. The question as to whether these should persist is a moral, political and legal one, but it is important not to fall back on the idea that these are inevitable, just the result of market forces, or only historic. The world is changing. For example in the UK women graduates in their 20's are on average paid slightly more than male graduates. It may not be possible to sustain these differences and large organisations especially need to react and develop policies to address it.

If you base salaries on what people ask for, you're going to have salary inequities. Half the point of asking what people want to be paid is to save the company money by not paying more than you have to. This is the problem Google's analysis in this case was meant to solve, so why perpetuate it by even starting that way?

One of the inequities in salary negotiations is that research has shown that women are less likely to negotiate, or negotiate as aggressively. This is considered a major factor in gender-based pay disparity. It is highly likely cultural differences exist too.

A conscientious organization will need to find ways to mitigate that difference.

That's not inherently a gender problem though, there are men who are also lousy at negotiating... just as there are people (men or women) who are great at it.

It's possible that is exactly what happen here: Google had attempted to mitigate the problem for women, but not for men. Which could explain why their analysis end-up boosting the salaries of many more men than women.

If they mitigated the problem for women and not for men, they'd have another lawsuit to deal with.

What I think should be uncontroversial to say is that they went about this the right way - raise all boats. There was another company in the news where men in executive positions took pay cuts for equity - we should never let companies get away with paying *less*, using equality as a wedge against anyone. Instead, lift those on the lower end of what they should be paid, of any gender or whatever else.

What I think should be uncontroversial to say is that they went about this the right way - raise all boats. There was another company in the news where men in executive positions took pay cuts for equity - we should never let companies get away with paying *less*, using equality as a wedge against anyone. Instead, lift those on the lower end of what they should be paid, of any gender or whatever else.

Unfortunately, though, such an approach may perpetuate inequality which in some cases will be unlawful, or for that matter leave a company be unable to respond to a changing employment market. Whether there are actual cuts in pay, one group has to forgo increases or bonuses, or whatever, evening out inequalities has to be funded somehow. There is not necessarily a pot of money elsewhere.

Of course this should not be done arbitrarily, even less so by the gender of the individual. Which is why the regrading or pay review process has to be carefully done, seen to be fair, and as open as possible.

How do they know the algorithms they use, and the analysis by their HR staff aren't reintroducing a pro-male bias with their actions? One can't be sure when human judgment, or non-sentient (AI) factors are involved, because in the end, it's all done by people somewhere upstream. Merit is the 21st century's most influential ambiguity.

Unintended consequences. I worked for a university and our department was a mixture of IT and administrative duties. While not on the level of these tech giants, large universities give them and government a run for incompetent hiring and promotion stupidity. The vice provost (a woman) was informed the university wanted more female managers so she had our director pushed out. The replacement hired (a white woman) started and soon after one employee (black male) who wasn't happy with changes she implemented, stopped complying with them. She let it be known she wanted him gone but her hands were tied because any action taken against him without fear of a charge (racial) against her. This director then specifically created a new management position under her but over this employee and hires a new employee (black female) with the intentions of either getting the earlier employee to work or be fired (by this new manager of course, black female trumps black male). It was so obvious to everyone, and frustrating to see funds and a position go to this purpose. Everyone in the office was on edge to avoid taking sides, not be seen talking behind closed doors, and within a year the new manager position hire had made claims against the department. This resulted ultimately with a new vice provost (white male) and director (previously mentioned black female). I am happy not to be working for the university these days.

Maybe companies should try the novel idea of paying people based on nothing more than skill and experience. You know, those things that are actually useful at work, instead of reasons that have nothing to do with the job.

I'm not sure why this is so hard. Pay should be based on experience, productivity and other measurable factors. Gender shouldn't even be in the equation. If there is a check block for male/female in the process you're doing it wrong.

That's the ideal, but it's very simplistic to stop there and think you are done. The reality is that the pay decisions include a step for "performance ratings" which are subjective, as well as "additional discretionary raises for their best-performing employees" which are also subjective. There's plenty of room for bias to creep in. Even if the manager is not deliberately favoring one gender or one race, they may have unconscious biases which affect the ratings they give.

Google here is dealing with that by then looking across the totality of those subjective decisions to see if there is an overall trend. If the overall trend was that the subjective decisions tend to favor one gender or one race, that would be discriminatory treatment -- even if it's unconscious or unintentional -- and create the grounds for a lawsuit.

Hiring and promotion decisions are also subject to those subjective influences and are more difficult to measure, which is why Google hasn't managed to do that yet.

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

If you base salaries on what people ask for, you're going to have salary inequities. Half the point of asking what people want to be paid is to save the company money by not paying more than you have to. This is the problem Google's analysis in this case was meant to solve, so why perpetuate it by even starting that way?

So by implication you are saying that HR should not ask people how much they want and just tell them what the position pays take it or leave it?

Uhhh, yeah. that would be a whole lot more transparent. It would also force companies to compete more openly for talent. As you would know that Google will pay a 5 year experienced engineer 80k/yr and Apple will pay the same person 85k/yr. (pulled random numbers out my ass for an example). Entire websites like Glassdoor wouldn't exist in order to try and figure out what "fair value" was for a position because everyone would know.

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

Eventually, yes. If employee 2 winds up being paid less than employee 1 despite being a consistently higher performer then they're at a much greater threat of being poached, which will cost you a lot more. It's far better to correct their pay. At least in Australia contracts will even lay out your pay rises as a percentage based on performance (if you want a big pay rise, get a promotion)

Big companies also have pay bandings. You're a level IV android developer with these skills and x tenure? Your pay should be within 200-220k. You're earning under this? Pay rise time to at least correct that.

Going to work for an SV company (I start next monday!) and that was *exactly* how they did it. It was weird. I was so used to trying to hardline on salary negotiations and they were like, yeah... we aren't going to bring you on at a higher pay than our current highest paid employee for that level. Also, the pay for this level ranges from x to y so I would expect a salary somewhere in there.

It was really different and weird to me. But at least I know that I am not getting screwed as everyone at that level should be making around the same. I'm getting fair value according to what the company will pay.

Or another hypotheticalYou work a job that has a huge pool of comparable workers doing the same thing. You are judged to be in the 65th percentile of work quality so you are paid in the 65th percentile of pay. Dont bother asking for a raise because if we gave you one then we would need to bump everyone to be fair. Pay equality effectively nerfs negotiating possibility. And thats not fair.

Why should your pay be based on how well you can negotiate if negotiation is not part of your job duties?

Because companies want to save money by paying as little as they can get away with?

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

I’ve had this same situation (less $$ though). Female came in offering to work for $15k less than our minimum at the pay band for her skill level. Now, my company could’ve made a profit off her low salary, but I knew within 6 weeks she’d know how much less she was getting paid than her male counterparts (in this case the other 4 on her team all happened to be male), and she’d probably quit. So, I told my boss (female) I was going to offer her the low end of the pay band and then work her up to the others over the next 2-3 years (who were mid-range in the pay band) with semi-annual raises (about a $5k total raise). Dolly (the applicant’s nickname) was stunned we offered her so much more than what she asked for. 6 weeks later, she came in wanting to know why she wasn’t at the same level as her teammates. I told her it was a lesson for her not to devaluate her skills, and she’d get there soon enough. Kept my word, took 2 years and she was at the same level. She still works for us, but not in my area anymore, and that was 10 years ago.

I'd rather see drivel and ad hominem attacks than those screen-wasting ponies. The "ponies" are being used abusively to shut-down debate or dialog. It is not amusing. No doubt the same pony-posters will think they are clever by replying with more ponies, but all they will be doing is demonstrating their intellectual bankruptcy.

If you don't like what someone says, down-vote it but please don't try to shut-down dialog by chewing up the pixels.

On the one hand I agree with your comment.

But... on the other hand I do enjoy the pony posts.

I am not sure if I should up-vote you, down-vote you or find an MLP wiki and contribute to the problem...

Why should your pay be based on how well you can negotiate if negotiation is not part of your job duties?

And what jobs require no negotiating skills at all?

I'll be glad to point out how either those jobs in fact do require negotiating skill, or that they should be automated. Flexibility in how goals are achieved, how effectively work can be done, and how worker satisfaction can be attained is based upon the ability of humans to negotiate among themselves.

Give workers the choice between their ability to add unique value by negotiating, even on small things, and no negotiation with robotic expectations and I'm pretty sure that they will argue in favor of negotiation, which proves the point.

Ok cool, then by that factor if you fail at negotiating appropriately for your salary then you failed the test and therefore get turned down for the job. I mean, if negotiating is *that* important to the job you are being hired for, then clearly, you should get turned down.

Manager: How much do you want?Person Seeking Job: 50kManager: Oooo, sorry, the answer we were looking for was 70k. Thank you have a nice day.

Or... you know... the whole negotiating for your salary ploy combined with "Now don't go talking with employees about how much you make..." is all just a tactic so the company can get away with paying everyone less money.

I'm not sure why this is so hard. Pay should be based on experience, productivity and other measurable factors. Gender shouldn't even be in the equation. If there is a check block for male/female in the process you're doing it wrong.

That's exactly the point of the adjustment, it shouldn't matter.

Gender would come in after identifying that some people are underpaid, when looking at who was underpaid and trying to figure out if there are systemic biases.

As a hiring manager and someone who gives merit increases to people each year, in my opinion pay gap between men and women is mostly the result of differences in negotiation skills. Women tend to be more passive when it comes to salary discussions. There are men who are similarly passive about it, but there are relatively few of them. I'm sorry, but negotiation skills are important in life. If you are not good at it, go get some classes. It will pay handsomely throughout your life. You can learn those skills even if you think you will never be good at it. If you are a woman who thinks her negotiation skills could be better, then invest some time in improving it. Your career will thank you later.

Also, there will never be pay equality, same as there will never be skill equality. You need to be able to reward high performers, and this will always lead to salary inequality.

So you fully admit the pay gap has nothing to do with the merit or skills of the employee.

Your comment is without foundation as, Cadence pointed out a presumedskill difference: negotiating skills. Please note my qualifier "presumed" as it is his presumption, not mine. I offer no opinion for the causes of pay differences as I have no data.

Perhaps you'd care to argue that negotiation isn't a skill, or that men's negotiating arguments are perceived more favorably than women's, or whatever.

Either way, absent data, all of these arguments are political and social, and as such are based in belief, and quite frankly are more religious in nature than scientific.

I would argue that it's not a relevant skill. I'm better at juggling, so since we're rewarding non-relevant skills, should I get more money?

Or another hypotheticalYou work a job that has a huge pool of comparable workers doing the same thing. You are judged to be in the 65th percentile of work quality so you are paid in the 65th percentile of pay. Dont bother asking for a raise because if we gave you one then we would need to bump everyone to be fair. Pay equality effectively nerfs negotiating possibility. And thats not fair.

Why should your pay be based on how well you can negotiate if negotiation is not part of your job duties?

Because functioning in any society depends on your ability to negotiate... and yes your job requires negotiation as well; that's how you resolve disagreements.

Step 1. In previous years, Google (and other companies) are accused of not elevating enough women to higher-paying positions.

Step 2. Google elevates more women to these positions, without necessarily adjusting the algorithm for how and when they do this. (Now today, they have to re-adjust this algorithm). These women were, perhaps, paid somewhat higher salary than their male peers, if only to keep them on board and highlight that Google was doing something about the problem.

Step 3. The algorithm they DO have now reports that (the by far larger number of) men in those positions are paid less than their female peers, hence this article.

Solution? Readjust the algorithm. Perhaps a new algorithm is needed. Don't want to be evil, now.

Google was started by men. I'd like to see the DOL audit reports on Hufington Post when Arianna Huffington still owned it. Did her company hire a majority of women ? Were they compensated more than their male counter parts ? Or was HuffPo balanced and equal and everyone treated the same ?

A side pondering -- where is the line drawn for equality ? Is it when there is 50/50 men to women ? 50/50 white to black ? 25/25/25/25 white/black/asian/hispanic ?

Or is it when the percentages of those subcultures in the US are represented at the same percentages within the company ? Otherwise the previous 2 questions would mean that there is an unbalanced representation of those minorities in a given company. And if Google and other tech companies that were started by white men are receiving this level of scrutiny then shouldn't companies started by minorities receive the same/ equal amount of scrutiny ?

Or another hypotheticalYou work a job that has a huge pool of comparable workers doing the same thing. You are judged to be in the 65th percentile of work quality so you are paid in the 65th percentile of pay. Dont bother asking for a raise because if we gave you one then we would need to bump everyone to be fair. Pay equality effectively nerfs negotiating possibility. And thats not fair.

How about equality in base pay and if you want to pay more to top performers do bonuses tied to relevant metrics?If you are tying positions to specific pay grades you can also differentiate high performers by moving them to the next higher position, ie Widget Maker I, Widget Maker II, Widget Maker III, Senior Widget Maker, etc.... all at escalating pay grades.

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

If you base salaries on what people ask for, you're going to have salary inequities. Half the point of asking what people want to be paid is to save the company money by not paying more than you have to. This is the problem Google's analysis in this case was meant to solve, so why perpetuate it by even starting that way?

So by implication you are saying that HR should not ask people how much they want and just tell them what the position pays take it or leave it?

Uhhh, yeah. that would be a whole lot more transparent. It would also force companies to compete more openly for talent. As you would know that Google will pay a 5 year experienced engineer 80k/yr and Apple will pay the same person 85k/yr. (pulled random numbers out my ass for an example). Entire websites like Glassdoor wouldn't exist in order to try and figure out what "fair value" was for a position because everyone would know.

This sounds like an approach ripe for systemic depression of salaries for entire job classes among all companies.

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

If you base salaries on what people ask for, you're going to have salary inequities. Half the point of asking what people want to be paid is to save the company money by not paying more than you have to. This is the problem Google's analysis in this case was meant to solve, so why perpetuate it by even starting that way?

So by implication you are saying that HR should not ask people how much they want and just tell them what the position pays take it or leave it?

Uhhh, yeah. that would be a whole lot more transparent. It would also force companies to compete more openly for talent. As you would know that Google will pay a 5 year experienced engineer 80k/yr and Apple will pay the same person 85k/yr. (pulled random numbers out my ass for an example). Entire websites like Glassdoor wouldn't exist in order to try and figure out what "fair value" was for a position because everyone would know.

This sounds like an approach ripe for systemic depression of salaries for entire job classes among all companies.

Well we have been dealing with real wage declines in the US for a generation so I am not sure the current system is superior.

Im not sure how you can expect everyone to make the same pay.hypothetical situation - 2 job openings for the same job and you have narrowed it down to 2 applicants---------------------------------------------interview 1interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 1: I was hoping for $110kinterviewer: Ok, we can see that-----------------------------------interview 2interviewer: how much were you looking to make?applicant 2: I was hoping for $100k--------------------------------Now how do you pay them both equally? Do you tell the 2nd guy that you are going to pay him more than he asked for?

Yes. For a larger company, the pay that they offer is based on a scale determined by location, years of experience, and average salary for the position. I have always been offered more than I have asked for.